Serious Sam 4 Dev Reveals Why Game Dropped Its Subtitle
Two years after its initial announcement, Serious Sam 4 is poised to launch this month. The wait has been long for fans of the series, but it looks like it will have been worth it. If the recent Serious Sam 4 trailer is anything to go off of, this is probably the game long-time fans have waited for.
To understand the appeal of Serious Sam 4, one must understand a bit about the history of the series. The games follow the eponymous Sam as he faces a tyrannical space overlord and his horde of utterly insane monsters. The games are first person shooters in the vein of Duke Nukem. Previous titles have been as ludicrous as they have been fun, and the series as a whole is a long-running cult hit. The first Serious Sam was the first big flagship release for Devolver Digital, now a major indie publisher.
With all that said, the game's original subtitle, "Planet Badass," certainly makes sense for a game like Serious Sam 4. However, after news of the game slowed for a while, it was re-introduced without the subtitle. Many players were confused by this, since every mainline Serious Sam game has come with a subtitle attached. It was possible that the move was meant to make players take the game more seriously, as an interview with Serious Sam 4's creators revealed it has a more extensive story than previous titles, but this seemed unlikely. It was a recent Kotaku article that revealed the truth: the name was changed for translation purposes.
Speaking with Kotaku, one of the developers of Serious Sam 4 revealed that, contrary to popular belief, the name change was born out of practicality. As part of its ongoing, delayed release, Serious Sam 4 is releasing in multiple languages. The translation of "Planet Badass" doesn't work nearly so well in some of those languages, and the subtitle would just be confusing. Thus, for the sake of clarity, the subtitle was scrapped altogether.
Previously, one of the theories as to why it was changed included spamming a picture of Randy Pitchford (Gearbox's CEO) wearing "badass" sunglasses in the Serious Sam Discord server. Why this was done is unclear, although it seems like it may have been a criticism of the game's tone, or at least a protest of the subtitle. Considering problems that Randy Pitchford has had in the past, it would make sense that the dev would want its game's subtitle linked with him.
Again, this was not the actual reason the name was changed. Unfortunately, the subtitle, which also has some significance to the game's story, simply didn't translate well. Fortunately, the story and gameplay will remain completely unchanged. Which is good, because if Serious Sam 4's Popemobile Mech was removed due to a translation problem, some players may have protested an actual gameplay problem.
Serious Sam 4 will release on September 24 for PC and Google Stadia.
Source: Kotaku
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